The Task Force on Space Industry Workforce and Economic Development has launched an interactive website to encourage public comment on ways to promote economic growth and sustainability in Florida's Space Coast region as it adapts to changes in America's space program.

The site offers valuable information about the work the administration is doing to create jobs in the region by fostering a more supportive entrepreneurial ecosystem.

"We consider the new interactive website an important tool to understand public concerns and challenges about the economic growth and well being of Florida's Space Coast," said Woodrow Whitlow, NASA's associate administrator for the Mission Support Directorate in Washington.

"This tool and our other outreach efforts will help the task force prepare recommendations for the president that reflects the greatest needs and concerns of both the public and the area's aerospace-related industries."

On May 3, President Obama issued a presidential memorandum establishing the task force. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke are co-chairing the effort.

"President Obama is committed to helping Florida's Space Coast adapt and thrive in the years ahead," said U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development John Fernandez.

"The work of the task force adds to this administration's unprecedented level of transparency, and ensures public trust, participation and confidence. Our efforts depend on the participation of local stakeholders who will ultimately devise and implement a bottom-up, regionally driven strategic plan."

The task force's mission is to develop an interagency strategic action plan to enhance economic development along Florida's Space Coast and related areas. Plans will include recommendations to ensure the region is equipped to adapt to changes in local economies resulting from developments in America's space program.

Among these recommendations will be a strategic investment plan for $40 million in new federal funding for the Space Coast region that the president included in his 2011 budget request. The task force will present the plan to the president by Aug. 15.